Of Huntsmen and Hearts
by inkfiction
Summary: A look on Regina's relationship with the Huntsman, and, consequently, a look into Regina's thought process. And perhaps more angst than is healthy, with a side of Swan Queen if you squint a bit. Prompt: Recruitment. List Beta/Hero 5.


**Title:** Of Huntsmen and Hearts  
**Fandom:** Once Upon a Time  
**Characters:** Hunting Queen (Regina/Graham) with a side of Swan Queen if you squint a bit.  
**Spoilers/Warning:** Perhaps. Warning for angst and character death. Short fics/drabbles with various OUAT pairings, based on _List Beta/Hero_ from '30 kisses' prompts on LJ.  
**Summary:** A look on Regina's relationship with the Huntsman, and, consequently, a look into Regina's thought process. And perhaps more angst than is healthy. _Prompt: Recruitment._  
**Disclaimer:** This is purely fictional. I own none of it.

[...]

**Regina/Graham — **_**recruitment**_

_A/N: Well, lookie, I wrote angst again. Shocking, innit. All the Regina feels for this one._

A kiss was just a kiss, and sex was just sex — wasn't that how it was supposed to be? At least that was how Regina had conditioned herself.

So she took the kisses and submitted to the sex — but, really, submitted was perhaps the wrong word here. The sex — like so much else in her life — was about power. And revenge. And the power was supposed to feel good and the revenge was supposed to feel sweet but instead, every time, it was a little harder to swallow, clogging her throat like an oily little pill, and settling in her bones like a bitter, restless malady, and then all the kisses and soft touches and hard thrusts in the world weren't enough, and she sent him away, kicked him out of her bed, and even the sight of his scurrying butt was no satisfaction. That she had taken this man, recruited him, and then quashed his heroism, that she had ripped his heart out, and with it so much of what made him, that she had kept him as a pet, as a slave, subject to her every whim and desire, was no satisfaction. It was hollow, her victory, her heart, and his ministrations failed to fill that gaping hole, no matter what she made him do. Oh, it was a horrible parody, what they did in the bedroom. An act that required every ounce of the monumental skills she had perfected over time, and sometimes, even those weren't enough.

He had been faithful, oh yes. For twenty-eight years and more. And then, well, the twenty-ninth started and things happened. Emma Swan happened. And things changed. He changed. He started getting thoughts about hearts and feelings and memories — and Regina knew that what she had done won't be enough. Deep down she always knew she would never be enough. So she did what she always did — she lashed out, hurt, enraged, scared out of her mind, she lashed out. At Emma first. But Emma was different, wasn't she? Emma with her foster homes and her jail records and her bail bonds skills, Emma with her child-like eyes and her sad smile and her stubborn, stubborn mind. Yes, Emma was different, unique, and Graham realized that and Regina knew that, and she knew that she won't be enough — she never was, was she? Never had been.

Not for her mother who had always wanted more; for her, Regina had been a ladder, and never high enough. Not for her father because — poor man — he didn't even know what enough was. Not for her lover, because fate took him away long before he realized what was enough for him and what wasn't. Not for her husband — who had wanted a glorified nanny, a decoration for his court, a body to fill the empty side of the bed and nothing else, and kings got what they wanted — but so did queens, didn't they? And she did, didn't she? Didn't she? And the fifteen barren, fruitless, hopeless years spent with Leopold were the reason Graham ended up in her bed in the first place, anyway — besides all that 'letting Snow go and giving her a fake heart' part. Really, she couldn't trust any advice that mirror gave her — it was useless!

And eventually she hadn't been enough for the son she had loved and nurtured since he was but a few days old, and then not even for Graham. So the flaw, she knew, she had always known, was in her and not in countless other people. It was her brain, or probably her heart. Must be her heart, she decided, all that poking around and magicking and punishing that Cora had done. But, she thought as she stepped over cobwebs and down the dusty stairs, it wasn't like she had tried to remedy what Cora did — was there even a remedy? — she had only added to it. A flaw, leading to bad decisions, leading to more flaws, leading to more bad decisions, leading to — well, you get the general idea. It was a vicious cycle. Well, less of a cycle and more of an inverted pyramid, really.

She _knew_ she was making a bad choice when she held that heart in her hand — but she was afraid. She was so afraid. She could see the cracks in the life she had created, she could see the scales begin to tip and she was scared out of her wits — so, yes, she did the only thing she could, the only thing she knew how — she lashed out. It was _the_ most painful thing she had done in a long time — in the last twenty-eight years, in fact. Holding that heart — warm, alive, pulsating — in her hand and squeezing, and oh, God, it had _hurt!_

And somewhere far above ground a golden-haired princess held a lifeless huntsman in her arms and sobbed, and down below, in the dust of ages, an Evil Queen broke down and wept.

_**~fin~**_

_A/N: Perhaps a little more abstract than I would've liked it to be, but there you are. Thoughts?_


End file.
